Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter

A Report From London: WDYTYAL Day #2, with Pictures

Day #2 of the Who Do You Think You Are? LIVE! show got underway today at 9:30 AM, London time. The show was basically a continuation of yesterday's event with a few minor variations. For one thing, the crowds seem to be a bit bigger. I assume that is because it is Saturday; more people have the day off and can visit a show like this.

You can see just a bit of the crowd in the picture to the left in which Nick Francis of AncestralAtlas.com demonstrates the new online service to Megan Smolenyak.

Today's crowd also seemed to be a bit younger. I saw quite a few couples pushing baby carriages, something I am not used to seeing at genealogy conferences.

Yesterday I mentioned all the DNA talks. There were more today but, unlike yesterday, I did see one DNA talk with a few empty seats in the back of the DNA theatre. I also attended lectures by DNA experts Katherine Borges and Chris Pomery; both of them had no empty seats.

Haley-Baff Family Reunion, Thanks to DNA

This is a fascinating story, involving genealogy, the late Alex Haley, his nephew Chris Haley, a family in Scotland, Megan Smolenyak, Roots Television, and Ancestry.co.uk. In brief, Alex Haley's roots and those of Chris Haley have now been traced back to... Scotland! This week the "family" had a reunion in London, and I was fortunate enough to be there to watch it happen. I even took pictures.

Alex Haley was well known for his book Roots, which became a very successful television mini-series. The book is based upon Alex Haley's maternal ancestry. Stories were handed down in that family from generation to generation – stories that later became the basis for the Roots story that described Haley's search for his roots in Africa.

Alex Haley didn't write much about his paternal ancestors. However, he later wrote Queen: The Story of an American Family. Queen is a partly factual historical novel which portrays the plight of the children of the plantation – the offspring of black slave women and their white masters, who rarely acknowledged the children who were not only their progeny but also legally their slaves.

myFamily•ology Genealogy Program Enters Beta Testing

I haven't yet seen this program, due to my travels, but the press release does sound interesting:

Franklin Lakes, NJ - myFamily•ology today announced the beta release of its one-of-a-kind Web-Based Family Genealogy Program. Amateur and professional genealogists are invited to help test the soon-to-be released software program before it is available to the public.

APG Call for Papers

The following announcement was written by the Association of Professional Genealogists:

Professional Management Conference (PMC) sponsored by the Association of Professional Genealogists
 
18 August 2010
Knoxville Convention Center 
Knoxville, Tennessee

A Report from London: WDYTYAL Day #1, with Pictures

The largest annual genealogy conference in the English-speaking world is the Who Do You Think You Are? LIVE!, or WDYTYAL, show held each year in London, England. This conference typically attracts 10,000 to 15,000 attendees. Obviously, with crowds like that, the organizers are doing something right.

The 2009 edition of the WDYTYAL show opened today, and I was standing in line when the doors opened. Even better, I brought my camera so that you, too, can see what this conference is like.

You can see all my photographs at http://blog.eogn.com/photos/2009_wdytyal although there are a few samples embedded in this article. Click on any of the thumbnail-sized images to see a larger version of the same photograph. You may have to scroll down a bit to see the descriptions that are under most pictures.

The Who Do You Think You Are? LIVE!, or WDYTYAL, show is not a genealogy conference. It is more of a fair than a conference, with a strong emphasis on vendors and services available. The show attracts thousands of genealogy newcomers, and the vendors work hard to show how much fun it is to research your family tree. This event typically features presentations by well-known British TV personalities, by genealogy experts, and by DNA experts as well.

Descendant Sues Skull and Bones Society over Geronimo's Bones

The great-grandson of Apache warrior Geronimo argues in a lawsuit that a secretive society at Yale University holds the remains of his great-grandfather. Geronimo was buried in Oklahoma, but some say a secret society absconded with his remains.

Harlyn Geronimo has sued Yale and the society -- the Order of Skull and Bones -- to try to recover the remains. "I think what would be important is that the remains of Geronimo be with his ancestors," he said.

(+) Free or Low-Cost Communications When Traveling - Part II

The following is a Plus Edition article written by and copyright by Dick Eastman. Please do not forward to others without the author's permission. This article is bing posted from a hotel room in London. Part I of this article is available at: http://plus.eogn.com/Default.aspx?pageId=113015&mode=PostView&bmi=119031.

In part I of this article, I described methods of paying lower-than-normal fees for cell phone usage while traveling in foreign countries. However, I'll also point out that the cheapest method is to avoid cell phones entirely!

Ancestry.ca Announces Online Launch of 1916 Census of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta

The following announcement  was written by The Generations Network, parent company of Ancestry.ca:

(Toronto, ON – Feb. 26 2009) In a world first, Ancestry.ca, Canada’s leading family history website, today launched online the 1916 Census of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta, which contains 1.7 million names and more than 38,000 images of original Census pages in an indexed and fully searchable format.

From 1906 to 1956, a separate Census was taken for the Prairie provinces five years after every national Census, providing a more complete picture of Canada’s west at this time. By law, the collection was kept private for 92 years and this is the first time ever that Canadians can view these important records online.

Engineers and Professional list of members published on Familyrelatives.com

The following announcement was written by Familyrelatives.com:

Finding out about your ancestor’s occupation and achievements allows the family historian to build a more complete picture of your ancestors’ past. Familyrelatives.com has released a collection of Professional member lists including the Engineers Who’s Who and the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England & Wales 1923.

NGS Conference in Raleigh, North Carolina 13-16 May 2009

This article was updated 27 February 2009 with a correction to the URL.

The following was written by the U.S. National Genealogical Society:

DISCOVER YOUR ANCESTRY AT RALEIGH, NORTH CAROLINA FAMILY HISTORY CONFERENCE

ARLINGTON, VA --  Millions of Americans hunger to connect with their roots, and there’s no better way to start than by attending a four-day event packed with experts and family history hobbyists with the same goal. The National Genealogical Society, headquartered in Arlington, Virginia, announces its 31st Family History Conference to be held at the Raleigh, North Carolina Convention Center 13-16 May 2009.

Creswell, Oregon's Time Capsule

With the state of Oregon celebrating its 150th anniversary and the city of Creswell observing its 100th this year, an ad hoc committee has begun working with city officials and area residents to collect and preserve historic materials for future Creswellians to open and view in 2059.

August 9, 2009, exactly 100 years after the city was incorporated, a dedication ceremony will be held, during which a time capsule, a hermetically sealed container, will be placed in a cavity under the lobby floor in the new city hall currently under construction. The question is: what should be placed in this sealed container?

(+) From Lloyd’s Library by Lloyd Bockstruck: Revolutionary Georgia and Alabama Sources

The following is a Plus Edition article written by and copyright by Lloyd Bockstruck.

For more than a decade Mary Bondurant Warren has been editing the Georgia Governor and Council Journals. The set is one of the most important collections of original source material for colonial and Revolutionary Georgia. The series begins in 1753 and has reached the Revolutionary War years. Her latest volume, the seventh, pertains to the year 1780 and features the civil war in the ceded lands.

A Video Interview with Cathy Pilgrim of the National Library of Australia

Cathy Pilgrim is the Director of the Newspaper Digitization Program at the National Library of Australia. A few weeks ago I met Cathy in New Zealand and asked her about some of her work digitizing all sorts of historical information, including sheet music. Roughly 3.5 million newspaper articles are also online and searchable at no charge.

You can watch and listen to our conversation on Roots Television at http://www.rootstelevision.com/players/player_conferences3.php?bctid=13786566001&bclid=10538975001.

The digitized newspaper articles are available online at the National Library of Australia's web site at http://www.nla.gov.au.

FamilyLink.com, Inc. Raises $2.4 Million Series B Funding Round

The following press release was written by FamilyLink.com, the company well known for its online service, World Vital Records. You might notice the comment about an upcoming web service, GenSeek.com:

PROVO, Utah, Feb 25, 2009 -- FamilyLink.com recently raised $2.85 million in Series B funding as social networking services continue to grow even during difficult economic times. FamilyLink.com raised its initial round of funding of $1.25 million in August 2007.

MyHeritage Adds Significant Improvements to Search Engine

The following announcement was written by MyHeritage:

The updated “MyHeritage Research” now queries around 12 billion names in 1,526 genealogy databases from across the internet

Tel Aviv, Israel – February 19, 2009 – Our latest addition made the MyHeritage Genealogy Search Engine more powerful, as we have expanded our database to include now 1,526 genealogically relevant databases, representing more than 12 billion names.

Documenting Arizona's Historic Cemeteries

Phoenix historian Reba Grandrud is one of those spearheading an inventory of Arizona's historic cemeteries. Volunteers working with the State Historic Preservation Office are trying to locate and identify burial sites and cemeteries that were established 50 or more years ago.

"A cemetery is one grave, three, a dozen, a hundred, two hundred, a thousand, whatever," Grandrud said. "Local people know where they are often, but to our knowledge there's never been a concerted effort even to list them."

"Those cemeteries tell the stories of Arizona's growth, from the Native Americans to the Spanish colonial period, even though there isn't much left. And they need to be recorded and documented, even if they aren't visible anymore," Grandrud said.

Historians, archaeologists, genealogists and directors of funeral and cemetery associations are all involved in the project, but more volunteers are needed. Grandrud said they want to have a comprehensive list ready by the state's centennial in 2012.

You can read more at http://www.azstarnet.com/allheadlines/281366.

(+) Casefile Clues by Michael John Neill: Canceling the Homestead

The following Plus Edition article was written by and is copyright by Michael John Neill. 

Homesteading brought thousands of Americans and immigrants to the Plains states. In this column, I look at a homestead claim that was actually canceled and see that it also tells us something about the claimant, even though he did not finish the homestead process. Genealogists should remember that not every application was completed, and not every migrant to the American West stayed. We may overlook crucial records if we make too many assumptions about our ancestors, as I initially did about the person in this study.

A Video Interview with Clark Stiles of the National Library of New Zealand

I recently had an opportunity to sit and talk with Clark Stiles of the National Library of New Zealand. He described a fascinating project: digitizing newspapers in New Zealand as part of the ongoing project, Papers Past. This project has been underway for eight years and is digitizing 42 newspapers and four periodicals from 1839 through 1920.

New Web Site Provides Online Access to New Zealand Birth, Death And Marriage Records

The following announcement was written by New Zealand's Ministry of Internal Affairs:

A website which provides online access to New Zealand’s historical birth, death and marriage records was today launched by the Minister of Internal Affairs Richard Worth.

The website, developed by the Department of Internal Affairs, will be useful to genealogists and people who would like historical birth, death and marriage information about their relatives, said Dr Worth.

Daughters of Union Veterans to Expand Headquarters & Museum

The Daughters of Union Veterans of the Civil War is expanding its national office and museum in Springfield, Illinois. The organization, whose members are all direct female descendants of Union Civil War veterans, recently bought an updated, 2,800 square-foot “American foursquare” home next to the Daughters’ museum and office at Walnut and Governor streets.